


I Haven't Been Good

by Koscy



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Campaign: Fantasy High (Dimension 20), Canon Compliant (Mostly), Character Study, Healing, Introspection, Mild Cursing, Multi, Self-Hatred, Self-Loathing, takes place throughout Sophomore Year Spring Break
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:33:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23902381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Koscy/pseuds/Koscy
Summary: Sandralynn must confront the choices and mistakes she has made, and face the consequences.(Chapter 1 takes place during episode 11 of Dimension 20 Live)(Chapter 2 takes place during episode 12 of Dimension 20 Live)(Chapter 3 takes place during the Season Finale of Dimension 20 Live)
Relationships: Gilear Faeth/Sandralynn Faeth, Sandralynn Faeth/Jawbone O'Shaughnessey
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	1. A Message to Jawbone

**Author's Note:**

> I love complex and flawed characters and writing this was a bit therapeutic for me. That being said, this whole fic, especially the first chapter is full of self-hatred and self-loathing, so if you are sensitive to those kinds of thoughts PLEASE take care of yourself. I plan to have 3 chapters total that will span the Dimension 20 Live season including the finale, so general spoiler warning for that.

_Jawbone, I'm sorry. I cheated on you even though I asked to be monogamous. It wasn't fair to you, we need to break up. Sandralynn_

She gave the message to Ayda to send off and waited for a reply. Only a few seconds passed before Ayda shared the reply.

_If you want to break up we will. I'm hurt, but I also hear your self-loathing and I hate that. We'll talk once you're back._

Sandralynn asks Ayda to leave her and return to the teens, and Ayda does so without hesitation. Sitting alone in a small room in the Compass Points Library, all Sandralynn can think about is how much she doesn't deserve Jawbone. He could hear the self-loathing through the message, and he's right. She does hate herself. As she sits alone in that room, that hate begins to speak:

_I don't deserve Jawbone._

_I betrayed Garthy's trust._

_I constantly lied to Gorthalax._

_I ruined Gilear._

_Gilear, the one person who showed me kindness after my adventuring career was ruined. He helped me heal, helped me find the words I needed to understand my situation. He showed me I still had a life to live. He left his amazing job as Elven Counselor to start a family with me in Solice. He sacrificed his whole life for me and how did I repay him? By fucking an archdevil, getting pregnant, and lying to everyone until I couldn't hide the secret and my shame anymore. I remember the day that Fig's horns started to grow in and it was obvious she was a Tiefling. I remember seeing Gilear break at that moment. I wanted him to yell and scream and throw things in my face, but he didn't. He just packed a suitcase, kissed Fig on the forehead, and left the house without looking at me. He's never been the same since then. Throughout this adventure, I'll sometimes see glimpses of the old Gilear, Elven Counselor, but it never lasts. I ruined his life._

_Gorthalax never deserved any of this. He only got tangled up in everything because I lied to him, multiple times. I lied when we first met about being married. He was the embodiment of pure rebellion and I was so enthralled that I said anything I could to get him to be with me. I'm such a mess that I don't even know if I ever really loved him or just loved the idea of him. When he was released from the ruby back in Fig's freshman year, he wanted to get back together with me and a part of me wanted that too. When we were together that night all I could think about was when we were young and full of life and love and so carefree. But when morning came I had to confront the fact that a relationship like that would never last. Even though he said he forgave me for lying to him, I knew he would never fully trust me, how could he? So I broke his heart and sent him away._

_Expect that's the problem, he didn't actually go away. He got a job at the academy and started dating Sklonda. During the first month or so that Gorthalax and Sklonda were seeing each other they weren't exclusive, so Gorthalax asked if I was dating anyone and I lied and didn't tell him about Jawbone, just like when we first met I lied so I could sleep with him. I know for a fact that's how I got infected with Kalina. Thankfully none of the kids have figured that out, they would all hate me even more than they already do._

_My carelessness has affected people I never meant to hurt. I drunkenly flirted with Garthy because...I don't even know why! I was trying to impress my daughter? So stupid! Not only was I cheating on Jawbone in front of my daughter and all her friends, most of whom live with Jawbone and me at Mordred, but also I ended up infecting Garthy with this weird shadow cat disease that we don't even fully understand yet. And Garthy is amazing. They deserve so much more than to be dragged down by my bullshit._

_And then there's Jawbone, the man who when I tell him I've cheated on him focuses on the fact that I'm being self-loathing. The man who gave me the option to have an open relationship, offered me the opportunity to explore polyamory, but I completely shut that down. I refused to entertain the idea because...why? Why did I insist on a monogamous relationship? I knew I wasn't going to keep it. I cheated on Jawbone with Gorthalax about 2 weeks after I made him promise to have an exclusive relationship. Why do I do this to myself? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME?!_

Sandralynn has no idea how long she stayed in that room, consumed by these thoughts. The only thing that broke her out of her own head was a knock on the door. She got up, quickly wiped the tears from her eyes, opened the door, and saw Ayda standing there.

"Everyone has completed their research and are ready to depart. Fig and Fabian talked to Garthy and discovered we need to go to Arborly so I'm going to teleport us there. Are you ready to depart or do you need more time to cry to yourself?" Ayda's face is so hard to read and Sandralynn is caught off guard by the bluntness but is pretty sure Ayda didn't mean to be rude or hurtful. Before she has a chance to speak Ayda continues.

"I used to cry to myself a lot before I met all of you. Is it normal to reveal that about myself? I just want you know I understand the desire to cry when things are hard. I don't understand your exact situation but I do understand that."

Sandralynn replies, "It's perfectly normal to cry and to talk about crying. I appreciate your concern. Thank you, Ayda. I'm ready to go. Let's join the others."


	2. A Conversation with Gilear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While the bad kids have a shrimp party, the adults have a healing conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what I imagine the conversation between Sandralynn and Gilear was like. I hope it doesn't seem too OOC for either of them. Enjoy!

Gilear was trapped in the wheel well of the van for almost the whole day and they only just found him. Sandralynn doesn't even know how to fully process this information, it's just too ridiculous. Once the teens get Gilear out of the wheel well and give him a new outfit, which they swear is hip and cool, she takes him into the house for some much needed relaxation.

While Gilear is using the hot tub, Sandralynn looks around the house and finds a daybed that is the perfect height for a massage. She remembers how she used to give Gilear massages a lot when they were together, and realizes he probably hasn't had one since they divorced. Since he spent the better part of the day trapped in a wheel well, she gets the bed prepared and as soon as Gilear comes back down from the hot tub she asks, "Hey, Gilear, when's the last time you got a massage?"

"A massage?" Gilear looks like he hasn't even thought about massages is many years. "Well, honestly the last time you gave a massage was probably the time I got one. Sometimes empty yogurt cups will get caught under the couch and sitting on them will get a few kinks out but--"

Sandralynn interrupts him, "Okay that settles it. Get on up here."

Once Gilear is laying on facedown on the daybed, she gets to work on the knots in his back.

"Geez Gilear, you gotta, like, this is something you should make a part of your routine."

"I am extremely broke."

She hears the kids, who have now come inside the mansion, joking about how loud the cracks are but just ignores them and continues her work. She's always found giving massages to be calming, and starts to get lost in the memories of when she and Gilear were together and she would massage him while they discussed their days. Those were such happy memories, such happy times, and she ruined them.

"Ow, ah, Sandralynn, stop!" Gilear's protests break her from her daze, and she realized she was pushing way too hard on a pressure point. She immediately withdraws her hand and apologizes.

"Oh my god, Gilear I'm sorry! I...I got distracted. Are you alright?"

Gilear stands from the table and stretches. "Yes, I'm fine. Honestly I feel better than I have in years. I didn't realize how much I've missed your massages."

Sandralynn smiles and says, "let's go back and rest in the van." She looks over to where the kids are and sees that they are starting to get rowdy, yelling about parties. She's pretty sure they won't fall asleep for a long time. She and Gilear approach them on their way out to the van.

Sandralynn calls to the teens and says, "Kristen casted hallow on the van, we still got a Nightmare King problem, we gotta crash in the van."

They all complain about wanting to sleep on nice mattresses, until they realize that hallow has a 60 foot radius.

"PULL! MATTRESSES! OUTSIDE OF THE VAN! SLEEP! UNDER! THE CANOPY OF THE TREES!" Ragh shouts very enthusiastically.

"Great, you guys have a matress party on the yard," Sandralynn says, and then she points at the Hangman. "Hangman, you're in charge while the adults are gone." 

She immediately regrets that decision but then decides that these kids all deserve one night of absolute chaos. They've been through so much already and once they enter the Nightmare King's Forest it only going to get worse. So she and Gilear leave them to their party and sit together in the van.

"Sandralynn, I don't mean to pry, but if you wanted to talk about everything that's been going on, I wouldn't mind a chance to act as an Elven Counselor again." Gilear sits a little straighter as he says this with a soft smile. He almost looks confident.

Sandralynn stares at Gilear for a good ten seconds, completely stunned by his openness to listen to her and counsel her like when they were first dating. She bursts into tears and just lets herself cry for the first time in a long time. Gilear moves over to her and embraces her in a hug, just letting her cry until she's calm enough to speak.

A thought crossed Sandralynn's mind and she starts laughing while tears still stream down her face. She leans away from Gilear enough to look at him and says, "I just realized you probably didn't hear the big speech I gave the kids when we stopped at Leviathan."

"No, some of the ants had gotten to my ears so I couldn't really hear anything." The confidence he has only seconds ago slips away as he remembers being trapped in that wheel well.

"Oh, Gilear," Sandralynn restrains herself from asking _What happened to you?_ because she knows what happened, she happened. She quickly pushes that thought as far away as she can and continues, "Well I basically told the kids that I haven't been a good role model to them and I've made so many mistakes but we have to keep moving forward and just try to be better." She looks up at Gilear and sees him deep in thought. After a long moment of silence, Gilear asks, "Why do you think you haven't been a good role model?"

The question catches her completely off guard. "What do you mean? You know what I did our first night in Leviathan, don't you?" Gilear has always been insightful and good at reading people, he had to know.

"You misunderstand my question. Why do YOU think you haven't been good? What thoughts go through your mind when you think about the situation?" When Sandralynn stares dumbfounded at him, he simply adds, "I told you I wanted to act as Elven Counselor again. If you don't want to talk about this we don't have to, but I think it would be good for you to discuss your feelings in a safe place with no judgemental teens."

At that moment they both hear, muffled through the van and the walls of the mansion, "CRAB KING! CRAB KING!..."

Sandralynn makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh of relief. "I haven't actually said any of this out loud. Other people have said it and everyone knows what happened but I haven't actually said it." She takes a deep breath and speaks the thoughts that have been eating her from the inside for too long, "I broke up with Jawbone. I've cheated on he not just with Garthy. I've basically been cheating on him since we got together. And it's so fucking stupid because he gave me an out! When we first got together he explained polyamory to me and asked if I wanted an open relationship, and I said no. I said no, and two weeks later I slept with Gorthalax! I'm such a fucking mess and Jawbone deserves so much better, everyone deserves so much better than I can give," Sandralynn breaks down and cries into her hands, curling in on herself.

Gilear moves over to Sandralynn and tentatively touches her shoulder and says, "I'm here if you need me, you can lean on me." Without a word Sandralynn moves her body so she is curled up against Gilear is a warm embrace. After a long while, without breaking the embrace, Sandralynn wipes her tears, looks at Gilear, and asks, "Why are you being so kind to me? I ruined your life, why are you doing this for me?"

Gilear looks at her, dumbfounded for a moment, before saying, "Sandralynn, our divorce was hard and sure my life hasn't been great, but you didn't ruin my life. Even though she's not my biological child, you gave me a daughter who I truly love more than anything else in the world. And even though our relationship didn't work out, I still care about you deeply. I want you to succeed and be happy. Seeing you beat yourself up like this; I hate it. I want to help you because I will always count you as a friend."

Sandralynn smiles through her tears. In this moment it almost feels like old times, when they were first dating and therapy sessions would turn into...something else. She speaks before she can think better of it, "this is almost like our therapy sessions back when we were dating. You remember how those usually ended, right?" She says it more flirtatiously than she originally meant to.

Gilear separates for her slightly so he is able to look at her fully and clearly. "Sandralynn, no. I care about you, you're my friend, and if we do that we will both regret it."

"Right, right of course. I'm sorry. Oh God, it would also infect you with the shadow cat and we don't want that. I'm sorry, forget I said anything, my emotions are just crazy right now."

"It's fine, I understand. I just felt I had to be firm about that."

"Yeah, of course," Sandralynn pauses and really looks at Gilear for a moment. "In the past hour or however long it's been, you have been more confident that I have seen you been in way too long."

Gilear laughs nervously, "I know. Honestly I surprised myself. But now that we've acknowledged it it's probably gone forever."

"Oh Gilear..."

And they spent the rest of the night talking about many different things and just finding comfort in each other's company.


	3. A Reunion with Jawbone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Bad Kids return from their successful Spring Break adventure, Sandralynn and Jawbone reunite and talk about their relationship.

The battle with the Nightmare King is over. Sandralynn cannot even begin to process the terrifying nightmare that was being in that forest. She attacked Baxter, her own daughter, all of the kids she had sworn to protect; she had no control over her actions yet knew exactly what she was doing. It was absolutely awful, but at least now it's over.

Sandralynn is hesitant as the group returns to Mordred Manor. She stands in the back, holding onto Baxter's fur for support as Jawbone welcomes everyone back home. He looks up and makes eye contact with her, his arms open and ready for an embrace. With tears streaming down her face, Sandralynn disregards everything else and runs to be in Jawbone's arms. He holds her tight in a warm embrace for what feels like a lifetime.

A little bit later, when everyone is settled back in and they are all sitting around with drinks and snacks, Jawbone says, "I mean we're gonna have to talk about boundaries, we're gonna have to talk about expectations, you know. I didn't want it closed to begin with, and, I mean, those horses are out of the barn at this point, but you know, you know we're gonna figure it out. And you kids never have to worry because Mordred Manor is a home for y'all, no matter what." 

Before Sandralynn can respond, Adaine is the first to speak up and say, "Our parents are great," looking lovingly at both Jawbone and her. She is completely speechless in that moment, so overwhelmed by the love that surrounds her. There's a part of her mind that whispers that she doesn't deserve this, but she ignores it as she listens to the kids, her kids, tell Jawbone about their Spring Break adventure.

That night, Sandralynn goes up to her and Jawbone's bedroom and sees Jawbone sitting on the bed waiting for her. Once he sees her, he says, "Alright, I think it's time to have a conversation about our relationship. I promise I will not pass any judgment on you. This is a safe place where you can say everything you need to. I just want to know what happened, so we can figure out how to move forward."

Sandralynn sits next to him on the bed, takes a deep breath, and begins, "I've never been able to stay loyal in a relationship, I always end up cheating, but it's not because I don't care about the person I'm with," she looks into Jawbone's eyes and says with all of her conviction, "I love you, Jawbone. I love you so much and I love everything we've built together, this house and this family. You and these kids mean the world to me, but..." She is about to say _I'm broken, I'm weak, I'm not a good person_ , but Jawbone speaks before those thoughts can be spoken aloud.

"I know, Sandralynn, I know. Just tell me what happened, it's okay."

Another deep breath and she continues, "I slept with Gorthalax about two weeks after you and I agreed to be exclusive. I probably would have kept seeing him except then he and Sklonda became exclusive and he would never cheat on her. I should say that, during that time, I didn't tell him about you, so he didn't know I was with anyone else. Then when I went with the kids on the adventure, we ended up on Leviathan, the pirate city," she sees his eyes go wide, and steels herself for his reaction. "We spent the night at the Gold Gardens and, I drunkenly flirted with and ended up sleeping with the owner -"

"Garthy O'Brien?" Jawbone looks shocked, but there is no anger or judgment at all. She almost thinks he looks a little impressed.

"Yeah, I found out you two knew each other afterward. It was actually really stupid. Fig was talking to me about how she didn't know how to flirt with people unless she was disguised as other people, so I, again I was very drunk, which doesn't excuse it but anyway, I wanted to impress her and somehow thought the best way to do that was flirt with the person in charge. And then Garthy led me to their chambers, except the kids ended up interrupting us and Kristen said, 'We're worried about you because you're acting poly but you're not poly.' And that slapped me back to my senses, but the damage was already done. And then of course about twenty other things happened and I couldn't even really think about what I had done and the trust I betrayed, not only of you but of everyone. Eventually, I was able to use that sending spell to you. I'm sorry, I know it probably sucked to have that be the one message I send to you while on a dangerous mission."

Jawbone puts his hand on Sandralynn's shoulder and she stops rambling to look at him. She can't read his expression, there are too many emotions happening at once. He says, "you know, I'm really conflicted right now. I know we need to keep having this discussion and hash everything out, but honestly now that I know you slept with Garthy I just wanna hear about how the sex was! They're amazing in bed, who did what? I want to know everything!"

"Jawbone!" Sandralynn doesn't know how to respond and feels tears starting to well up with so many emotions.

Jawbone laughs and says, "What? I'm allowed to be curious about my old friend. And this is the thing about open relationships, it's all about communication. I want us to be able to talk about these things. Of course only if you're comfortable with it. I never want you to feel ashamed of doing something that you enjoy. We're gonna talk about boundaries and expectations and all that stuff, like I said earlier, but right now," Jawbone gets a mischievous glint in his eye, "Why don't you show me what you and Garthy did."

Sandralynn surrenders herself to the ecstasy of that night. She ignores her doubt and self-hatred and just lets Jawbone's love for her consume her. She knows they have a lot of work to do on their relationship, and she knows she has a lot of work to do on herself, but she also knows that it is all worth it, to be with this werewolf and live in this haunted mansion with their children, whether biological, adoptive, or otherwise, plus the Barkrocks now. She has finally found her family and refuses to let anyone take it away from her, especially her own self-doubt. 


End file.
